bandwidth

[ranchmom5]

I am hoping you all can help me understand this better because even though I googled and read several websites I am not sure I have a better understanding.

We access the internet through satellite - wildblue. Like all satellite providers, they have an alloted bandwidth usage/month. We have never had trouble with this until we got all these laptops! Now we are going over our usage all the time.

We all have AVG anti virus which updates itself automatically; we all have a spyware program that does the same; we have Windows XP set to tell us when there is a download available but not to download them automatically; we all use gmail; one son uses an interactive math program online. I know music and video also uses lots of bandwidth but we are very careful of that.

Is there anything we are using that is causing excessive BW usage? Is there some better way to monitor it usage? I read something about Mozilla using less than Gmail but I guess I don't understand that. When a picture opens on Ebay does that use BW?

Thanks in advance.
Blessings

btw, I still haven't bought a desktop. I am watching the Dell outlet as much as possible....and I have also been looking at IBM/Lenovo options (mostly on Ebay since I don't want Vista).

[bhurley]

Music, video, photos, and software updates (not the antivirus or spyware ones, but bigger things like Windows updates) are the most likely culprits; although you say you're careful about downloading music and video, be sure that when you send photos or other files by email you're sizing them properly.

If you've got kids in the house, be sure they're not downloading pictures or music without your knowledge. My teenage stepdaughter downloads a lot of music and video files (illegally) every month using Limewire (she used to use Kazaa). And because that's a file-sharing network it means she's uploading those files too, without even being aware of it.

Another thing that can consume bandwidth is internet telephony (webcam chats, Vonage, Skype, etc.).

If you've got all your firewalls enabled and virus software up to date it's unlikely that any of your computers have been taken over as porn servers, but that's another thing that would eat up bandwith fast! Presumably you use a router, which should minimize the risk.

What is your bandwidth allotment? Maybe it's just set unrealistically low by your satellite provider.

[ranchmom5]

any of your computers have been taken over as porn servers

WOW! I had no idea this could happen! Is there a way to figure out if it has happened?

We do all have firewalls and anti-virus up to date. I don't send photos very often - maybe a few times/year. I checked with all the kids and they haven't downloaded music or movies or photos this month. The reason I asked the question is because we have a 7500 allotment and are already up to 4500.

We live way out on a ranch - no neighbors so I am sure no one is tapping into our network. We do use a router.

[bhurley]

any of your computers have been taken over as porn servers

WOW! I had no idea this could happen! Is there a way to figure out if it has happened?

Seriously unlikely given your router, firewalls, and anti-virus and anti-spyware. I'd say don't worry about that...it's something that happens to people who don't put in those security precautions.

The reason I asked the question is because we have a 7500 allotment and are already up to 4500.

I assume that's 7.5 gigabytes allotment, which is pretty generous. Somebody's got to be downloading and/or uploading big files...do you watch a lot of YouTube?

Regular web browsing shouldn't be a problem; most images are optimized for small file size, but it depends on how many computers you've got...a lot of people browsing, looking at YouTube, etc. could add up I suppose.

[ranchmom5]

It is 7500 MB....not GB. It doesn't seem to take much these days to use it up either. As i said in my first post...I really don't understand what is using up so much.

[aaa]

I think installing a bandwidth-counting program on each computer might help.

As mentioned, Youtube and other video stuff will gulp it down. I have 700mb just today from various video sites.

I'm guessing regular web browsing would only use 50mb.

[bhurley]

It is 7500 MB....not GB. It doesn't seem to take much these days to use it up either. As i said in my first post...I really don't understand what is using up so much.

7500 MB = 7.5 GB.

If it's January 10 and you've already used 4.5 GB this month then someone is downloading and/or uploading big files. We've got four computers here at home and one very download-happy teenager, and even we don't use 8 GB in a normal month. I used more than that in December but that's because I had to download two trial versions of Microsoft Office.

Conceptually, bandwidth is like a hose: your internet provider allots you a hose of a certain diameter, and if you exceed the hose's capacity they charge you extra. The larger the files you are downloading or uploading, the more bandwidth they will consume, and the more likely you are to eventually exceed the hose's monthly capacity. To get into the several gigabyte range over a month, you have to be downloading a number of large files such as video, music, or software.

I can't find the article online right now, but here in Canada there was a news story recently about a guy who got a bill for something like $50,000 from his internet provider -- he had signed up for high-speed internet but didn't read the fine print and didn't know he had a bandwidth limit. He downloaded dozens, maybe hundreds of full-length movies, TV shows, music files, etc., exceeding his bandwidth limit by a factor of several thousand.

[aaa]

7500 MB = 7.5 GB.

7.5GB = 7.5 * 1024 = 7680 MB

[bhurley]

7500 MB = 7.5 GB.

7.5GB = 7.5 * 1024 = 7680 MB

Yeah, yeah, I know, but it's close enough

Anyway, I just checked our bandwidth usage, and since December 26 we've used 2.4 gigs. And for November 25-December 25 we used 8.6 gigs (a more download-heavy month than usual). I work at home, so have very heavy email traffic with lots of large attachments. We watch a fair amount of Youtube, and my stepdaughter downloads video and music files nearly every day (although she'd never admit it; she denied using Kazaa for many months even though I saw it right there on her computer). I keep my computers up to date, which means downloading all the latest software updates from Windows Update plus Lenovo System update (some of those downloads are large). Plus I use Vonage (voice over internet) for all my business calls, and I did a bunch of video chats with my siblings over the holidays.

So even with all that we are using less bandwidth than you. Either your internet provider is not accounting for your bandwidth use correctly or someone in your family is downloading large files without your knowledge. The only other possibility I can think of is that satellite internet works differently than standard DSL or cable, and that a certain base level of bandwith is consumed just to maintain a connection. You might want to ask your satellite provider about that.

[ArtShapiro]

In XP, if you click on the network connection icon down in the tray (if so configured), or if you get to the TCPIP connection through other paths, it comes up with an on-the-fly "Status" box which shows you the activity, both sending and receiving. This is in terms of the vague "packets", rather than bytes, but will still be informative. If it seems to be substantially incrementing while you think you're doing nothing, this would be the proverbial "red alert".

This might be a specialized enough problem to merit posting in a networking forum, such as at the "Practically Networked Home" site.

Art

[rkawakami]

Some "free" things you can do:

- if you use Internet Explorer, set the Temporary Internet File space (i.e., browser cache) to something fairly large. In today's terms, that's about 400-500 MB. Also set the "Check for newer versions.." option to "Automatic". Same goes for Firefox/Mozilla, although I can't seem to find where you can set the same check for newer versions; it's probably buried in the about:config menus.
- if somebody downloads a large file (an .MP3, for example) and wants to share it with others, don't download it again. Instead, use Windows file sharing and send it between your computers.
- there's various ways you can do the same thing with streaming videos; use Goggle to find what works (and what doesn't any more)
- see if your router displays your network's data traffic. For example, I can log into my Netgear router and see how long the internal and external network connections have been online and how much data has been transferred. Also, a dead giveaway on my system is the DSL modem activity light blinking when there's a huge file being down or uploaded.
- closely inspect the system tray on all of your systems to see if there's a peer-to-peer program running (aka, Kazza, Limewire, Soulseek, etc.). Even if you don't see anything out of the ordinary, do a CTRL-ALT-DEL (assuming Windows XP here) and look at the Task Manager process list. Get familiar with what should normally be present on each system.

[gator]

Anyone using torrents?